Register of Children not in School
Damian Hinds Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Christopher— I think for the first time. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), my constituency neighbour, on securing this debate on a topic that is a Government priority. I thank her for all her work in this policy area and her continued interest in introducing legislation for registers of children not in school. As she knows, we share that ambition. Both I and the Secretary of State for Education look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she takes her Children Not in School (Registers, Support and Orders) Bill through Parliament. It is vital that we ensure that the rights of all children are upheld. In the case of children not in school, that is the fundamental right to a suitable education, which is in children’s best interests.
In the majority of cases, children not in school will likely be those who are home educated. It is important that we recognise that, in most cases, parents will be doing home education well and for all the right reasons. Home education is not easy and parents will often put in extensive time and resource to provide suitable education for their children, sometimes in challenging circumstances. I pay tribute again to all those parents who have made the difficult decision to home educate when the education of their child is at the centre of that decision. Home education is a parental right that the Government will continue to defend. Any form of registration of children not in school will not infringe that right. Registration will, however, better ensure that we defend children’s rights to a suitable education.
Over recent years, as various colleagues have alluded to, the number of home educating families has continued to increase. In summer 2023, the Department for Education estimated that 97,600 children were home educated in England—about 1% of all school-age children. Although such an increase is not necessarily an issue, we know from local authorities and the data on children missing education that not all children are in receipt of a suitable education when they are at home. I cannot stress enough that registration is not intended to impact parents who are home educating with good intentions and, as I said, often making numerous sacrifices to do it well. By knowing where the families are, we can better ensure that we target support to those who need it most and are not receiving a suitable education.
Without a statutory register of children not in school and the accompanying duties on parents and certain out-of-school education providers to supply information to it, we cannot know for certain the scale of how many children are missing education. We cannot know for sure how many children are in home education and what subset are in home education but not receiving a suitable education, or how many are receiving no education at all. Although we have taken steps, through our termly data collection from local authorities on electively home educated children and children missing education, to increase our understanding of that cohort and improve the accuracy of local authority data, that alone will not suffice. That is why the Department continues to remain committed to legislating for statutory registers.
The Department for Education’s commitment to establishing a local authority-administered registration system was first set out in our “Children not in school” consultation response, published in February 2022. That policy intention led to the children not in school measures that were part of the 2022 Schools Bill. The measures proposed the creation of duties on local authorities to maintain registers of eligible children and a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educating families when that was requested.
The measures did not include any proposals to extend local authorities’ powers to monitor the quality of the education being received, and that continues to be the case. The Government do not see the need for greater monitoring powers. We believe that local authorities’ existing powers, when they are used in the way set out in our elective home education guidance—which is currently being reviewed—are already sufficient to enable a local authority to determine whether the education is suitable.
I do not yet know the full detail of the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley. As colleagues know, the Government cannot support a private Member’s Bill prior to Second Reading, but I can say that the Government remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home educating families. Clearly, that which my hon. Friend seeks to do and what the Government wish to do coincide.
There are three main benefits to measures for children not in school. First, local authorities having registers of children not in school would help local authorities to better identify eligible children and help those missing education. New duties on parents to proactively provide to the local authority their name, their child’s name, their address and the means of education—such as where and who provides their child’s education—as well as new duties on certain providers of out-of-school education to reactively provide information on eligible children, such as their name and address, will help to identify more eligible children than is currently possible. The new information in the registers would help authorities to undertake their existing responsibilities for the purpose of ensuring that education is suitable and that children are safe.
Secondly, as I have already mentioned, that will ensure that both local authorities and the Department for Education have the necessary data to understand the scale and needs of this cohort of children, including the reasons why parents may choose to home educate. I will come back to that in a moment, in response to comments made by a number of colleagues.
Thirdly, those children and parents who want it will be able to benefit from additional support from the local authority. Our measures contained a duty on local authorities to provide or secure such support where requested to registered home-educating families to promote the education of a child. We felt that the support element of the measures was a vital component in encouraging positive engagement between local authorities and home educators and helping to ensure good-quality education. The support could have included advice about education; information about sources of assistance; provision of facilities, services or assistance; or access to non-educational services or benefits, such as to support home-educating parents to access exams or online teaching resources, for example through the Oak National Academy.
Jim Shannon
I am grateful to the Minister for that response. I suggested to him some of the things that my constituents did in Strangford. Although they were individually home schooling, they came together collectively for visits—every child loves a visit—to the council, the museum, the leisure centre or wherever, and that was something that was encouraged. Is there any possibility that the Minister, who is putting forward very positive thoughts, could consider that suggestion?
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, as ever. I was coming to that point, but as he has brought it forward I will say now that the guidance already encourages collaboration between home educators. As he says, in coming together often we can achieve more, and it is possible in principle that that could be enhanced further through the provisions on additional support. He makes a good point.
The measures would have ensured consistency of approach across local authorities through regulations and new statutory guidance, and it remains our intention to work closely with home educators, local authorities and other key stakeholders prior to the introduction of any new statutory system to ensure that it is implemented in a way that works both for home-educating parents and for local authorities. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers and to support local authorities to ensure that all children in their area receive a suitable education.
The Department’s consultation on revised guidance on elective home education for local authorities and parents closed on 18 January. We received more than 4,000 responses, which are being analysed. We will of course publish our consultation response along with the revised guidance in the coming months. The Department has worked closely with stakeholders, including home educators, to develop that guidance, which aims to help parents and local authorities better understand what they are required to do and what should be done to ensure that all children receive a suitable education. That includes improving aspects of the guidance to make clearer the processes for when preliminary notices and school attendance orders should be issued, encouraging a more collaborative approach between local authorities and home-educating parents, and focusing more on available support for home-educating families.
Through our termly local authority data collection on elective home education and on children missing education, we are also increasing the accuracy of all local authority non-statutory registers and improving local authority and departmental understanding of children not in school. However, as I have already set out, true data accuracy will be gained only with mandatory registers, which would specify the data to be recorded. The accompanying duty on parents to inform local authorities when they are home educating and the duty on out-of-school education providers to provide information on request are necessary to ensure that we identify all eligible children. We have recently conducted a call for evidence on improving support for children not receiving any education—some of the most vulnerable children in our society—and held webinars for local authorities on meeting their duties to identify those children, and we continue to collect data on children missing education to increase transparency and identify where further support is needed.
I thank all colleagues who have taken part in the debate for bringing to the House their expertise, constituency reflections and experiences. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley, who led the way. Since she came to Parliament, she has devoted her sharp mind and strong advocacy to a number of causes, but education has always been extremely high on her list. She explained clearly what motivated her to support this cause and introduce her private Member’s Bill. She paid warm tribute to parents who make great sacrifices and go to great lengths to home educate their children, and she put it pithily when she said “not every child is your child”—other children are in completely different circumstances. That in no way undermines what any parent is doing, and it does not conflate any two sets of circumstances. That point came up in a number of Members’ contributions. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that case, as did his colleague, the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). The hon. Member for Strangford also spoke about the importance of support; in responding to his intervention, I covered some of his points.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) spoke about a number of issues, including looked-after children and children in care. Since his time as Children’s Minister, he has maintained a close interest in that issue and has been very active on it. He also spoke about our largely or partly unsung success—the great strides we have made in education in this country since 2010. I pay tribute to his contribution to that through the great work he did at the Department for Education.
Our guiding philosophy since 2010 has been that we must drive up standards while closing the attainment gap. Great strides have been made in both areas, as can be seen in the international comparisons. Between 1997 and 2010, although results were ostensibly going up domestically, in fact England was coming down the international comparison tables. Since 2010, that has reversed, and crucially—as I say, this has been at the heart of our philosophy—that has been accompanied by other things we have been doing, such as the pupil premium. Great progress was made in narrowing the gap, but of course covid put a dent in education overall—that is true right across the world—and produced new challenges with the attainment gap. The attainment gap is also in part related to differential rates of attendance among different groups in the school community. That is just one of the reasons why we have a laser-like focus on attendance as we ensure we continue to raise standards in school.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Sally-Ann Hart), my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham raised some of the wider factors and spoke about the different settings in the system and the challenges and issues. Although those are not the subject of today’s debate—I will not try your patience by going there, Sir Christopher—those are very important points.
As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye brought to bear her experience in East Sussex and Hastings and Rye, and the hard work she does for her community. She spoke about the partial link between what we are talking about today and what happened during the pandemic. She also talked about SEND provision and, like my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham, some of the wider factors. The crucial point my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye made was that having a register would enable us to understand those things better, and enable local authorities to tailor support and ensure they are responding well to the circumstances of different families. I thank her for that contribution.
The hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who spoke for the Opposition, talked about persistent absence, which, as I just said, is a significant issue that we are grappling with. She did not mention the international nature of the increase in absence from school since the pandemic. She also did not mention the progress made since 2010, before the pandemic, including the tightening of the definition of persistent absence in order to raise the bar, which possibly happened shortly before my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham was in the Department for Education.
It is true that since covid there has been a renewed challenge in multiple countries. I am pleased to say that progress is being made. Absence overall for the 2023-24 autumn term was 6.8%, compared with 7.5% the previous year. The trend is moving in the right direction, but we need it to go further. I ask the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood not to conflate entirely different subjects. By definition, home-educated children cannot be persistently absent from school, because they are not on the school roll. We went through that at the Opposition day debate, which put completely different things together in one composite motion. That does not help provide the clarity we need on the subject, and how such debates play out with the public.
Damian Hinds
If the hon. Lady is able to correct me on that point, I will be delighted to hear from her.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. “Conflate” is the wrong word, because these issues are linked. For many parents, the causes of persistent absence, which we have talked about—poor mental health, poor SEND support, off-rolling and pressures on families—result in their decision to home educate. Theirs could be the home-educated children about which local authorities know nothing. The issues are linked and we need a comprehensive strategy, including a register of children not in school. That is our position.
Damian Hinds
I suppose I am grateful to the hon. Lady for saying that. If she believes that having a register of children not in school will do something about persistent absence, I am afraid she may have higher expectations than will be delivered.
Helen Hayes
The register would enable intervention on the quality of the education being received by children at home. Knowing who those children are enables local authorities to understand how they are being educated and to make a determination about the quality of that education. That can help local authorities to support some families to return their children to school, where the choice to home educate was not a positive choice to do that and do it well, but was made due to the unacceptable pressure that those families have been under.
Damian Hinds
These are both very important subjects, and there is some linkage at some level, but I do not think that what the hon. Lady just said is a sequitur. We are bearing down on persistent absence, with a support-first approach, to ensure that children get the benefit of being in school as many days as possible. No child can be in school every day throughout their school years—every child will be ill at some point—but there is a huge benefit to being at school. We recognise, of course, that some children are in more difficult circumstances than others. The question of the register of children not in school is a separate matter, though both are important.
I want to return to a couple of things that the hon. Lady mentioned on the Opposition’s proposed, or supposed, strategy on dealing with attendance. While in principle I do not disagree with a number of those things, that is largely because they sound very like Government policy. I do, however, disagree with some of the detail and supposed changes. For example, if we are trying to improve attendance at school, I think it is wrong to focus a breakfast club policy specifically on primary school, because we know that absence is more acute in secondary school. If we target a breakfast club programme to areas where it is needed most, we can have most impact on absence.
On mental health, I believe we might have heard a new spending commitment from the hon. Lady this morning. Previously, when the Opposition have talked about mental health counsellors, it has generally been in respect of secondary schools. I was not sure if she was saying that this was to be in every one of 22,000 schools.
Helen Hayes
I am very happy to clarify our position, which is well publicised. A mental health professional will be based in every secondary school in the country, with mental health support available to every primary school in the country. Perhaps the Minister might say what he is doing in the same area to improve the mental health of our children and young people.
Damian Hinds
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for enlightening me on that subject. She should know that we are investing in creating a network of mental health support teams throughout the country. It is a gradual deployment, as these things always must be, but importantly it includes primary schools as well as secondary schools. Finally, on what the hon. Lady said about Ofsted, I will just say that Ofsted already quite rightly looks at absence.
I want to reiterate that any form of registration of children not in school would not fundamentally alter the status quo when it comes to the parental right to choose home education. Home education is a right, and we are not seeking to change that right. It forms a core part of the English education system, which allows parents choice in how to educate their child. I pay tribute once again to all those parents who make significant sacrifices to provide a suitable education for their child.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley for bringing this topic to the House today. My colleagues in the Department for Education and I warmly welcome her Bill on the same subject. We look forward to its Second Reading on Friday 15 March, and to working closely with her as she takes it through the House.
Education
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we have expanded our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
[Official Report, 2 February 2024, Vol. 744, c. 1175.]
Letter of correction from the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds):
An error has been identified in my speech on Second Reading of the School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill.
The correct information should have been:
Damian Hinds
We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we will be expanding our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
Topical Questions
The following is an extract from Education questions on 29 January 2024:
Sir Jeremy Quin (Horsham) (Con)
Educational psychologists are enormously important. What progress are the Government making on their current recruitment drive to increase their number?
Mindfulness in Schools
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is good to see you in the Chair for today’s debate, Mr Gray. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols) on bringing this important subject to Westminster Hall today. I thank and commend everybody who has taken part: my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), the hon. Members for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), who speaks for the Opposition.
It is very important to discuss these issues, especially in the light of the tragic death of Brianna Ghey, who was a constituent of the hon. Member for Warrington North, and the outcome of the murder trial. It is a truly heartbreaking case, and our thoughts are with Brianna’s family and friends. Obviously, no one should be subject to any violence, let alone have their young life cut short in this most unspeakable and unthinkable way.
Schools and colleges should be respectful and tolerant places where bullying is never tolerated. I want to specifically recognise the work of Brianna’s mother to create positive action following her most terrible loss. Her ambition to promote empathy, compassion and resilience through the Peace in Mind campaign is one that we all commend.
There are few things more critical than the happiness of our children. The Government actively explore approaches that could improve young people’s mental health and wellbeing, such as mindfulness interventions. We are, of course, in Children’s Mental Health Week, and yesterday was—this is not exactly the same subject, but there is a lot of commonality, as has been explored again today—Safer Internet Day.
There is evidence of the benefits of mindfulness, and many schools will feel a positive impact on their students from programmes such as the one provided by the Mindfulness in Schools Project, but we should remember that it might not be right for everyone, every school or every individual in a school. Schools should retain flexibility to choose the interventions that suit their pupils and their local context, supported by high-quality evidence and guidance.
To help schools decide what support to put in place, we are offering all state schools and colleges a grant to train a senior mental health lead by next year. Over 14,400 have claimed such a grant so far, including four fifths of the schools in Warrington. The training supports the leads to assess and implement interventions that are suitable for their setting, which can include mindfulness. Our recently launched targeted support toolkit builds on that, providing senior mental health leads with further guidance on evidence-based interventions, again including mindfulness.
In addition, schools can look to the Education Endowment Foundation and to Foundations, formerly known as the Early Intervention Foundation, to review the evidence on the various approaches to support their students. We are funding a large-scale programme—I believe it is one of the biggest ever programmes—of randomised controlled trials of approaches to improving pupil mental wellbeing, improving our understanding of what works and providing new evidence for schools to use in planning their approaches. More than 300 schools have been involved, and the findings will help us evaluate the impact of a variety of interventions on mental health and on wider measures, including wellbeing, behavioural issues and teacher relationships.
The programme includes the INSPIRE trial, which is testing three approaches to improving mental wellbeing in school: daily five-minute mindfulness-based exercises, daily five-minute relaxation exercises and a new curriculum programme for mental wellbeing. I reminded myself earlier today that it was this week in 2019 that I had the opportunity of visiting Hayes School in Bromley, which was taking part in the programme, and where I had the chance to join a classroom-based mindfulness session. The trials have gone on for quite some time, although covid, as with so many other things, took a chunk out of the middle. However, the trials will conclude this Easter, and I want the results to be out as soon as possible—I hope by the autumn.
Our senior lead training also promotes tackling mental health and wellbeing through the curriculum, both directly in health education and by integrating the issue into the wider curriculum. In September 2020, we made health education, including mental health education, compulsory for all pupils in state-funded schools. That guarantees teaching on how to recognise the early signs of mental wellbeing concerns and where and how to seek support and self-care techniques, which again can include mindfulness.
We should remember that wellbeing-promoting behaviours can be encouraged beyond the classroom, and that has come up a number of times in the debate today. In particular, schools can develop their enrichment offers with an eye to NHS England’s “5 steps to mental wellbeing”, which sets out the steps that we can all take to improve our personal wellbeing. Those are, first, connecting with others; secondly, being active; thirdly, learning new skills; fourthly, giving to others; and, of course, fifthly, paying attention to the present moment—something that colleagues present might recognise as mindfulness.
We have spoken a number of times about the general extracurricular, or co-curricular, set of activities and their importance in developing character and resilience, and I could not agree more with colleagues about the importance of everything outside the classroom. That can be about outdoor learning, as the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale said, or about sporting activities, music or voluntary work—all manner of things that help to give us a sense of purpose.
There is also a range of self-regulation and wellbeing techniques, and mindfulness is one. Seeing my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham reminded me of a very good product created by West Sussex CAMHS, which I think is called an A to Z of wellbeing techniques for use with primary school children—of course, issues can sometimes develop from quite an early age.
The hon. Member for Strangford and others are right to talk about the particular pressures that young people today face. In many ways, the world they are growing up into is better, with more opportunities than ever before, but there are also new and different pressures that just did not exist when anybody in this Chamber was young. A lot of that is to do with electronica and social media.
Andy Carter
Could the Minister perhaps say a little more about some of the calls made for social media platforms to do more to prevent under-16-year-olds, in particular, from accessing their services? One of the greatest mental health challenges is the incessant presence of a mobile phone and a screen.
Damian Hinds
Indeed, but I do not want to try our Chair’s patience too much by moving too far beyond mindfulness, which is of course the subject of the debate. I have taken a very active interest in these matters for a long time, in my time at the Department for Education and at the Home Office, and otherwise in Parliament, and I think social media companies can do more.
Of course, we have just legislated in the Online Safety Act 2023. Most social media companies stipulate a minimum age of 13, but it is not uncommon for people to find a way around that minimum age. With the Online Safety Act, those companies will have to say how they are going to enforce that minimum age and then deliver on it. They are also going to have to ensure that they are protecting children from harmful content and removing, in good time, content that is illegal and identified as such. That is the legislation, but we do not need to wait for a law to do some of those things. I would say to everybody working in the technology field or in social media, most of whom have families themselves, that we all have a shared responsibility to think about the mental health, wellbeing and true interests of children and young people growing up.
I was just talking about the range of extracurricular activities, and I want to mention the range of support across Government for those, including the national youth guarantee and the enrichment partnerships pilot. We are also encouraging children to spend time in nature and to take in their surroundings, which I think the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale will welcome. The natural world has so much to offer in terms of grounding us, and we can see the potential of that through our work on the national education nature park, for example.
We have spoken a couple of times, rightly, about wider mental health provision, particularly for children and adolescents. More resourcing has been and is going into CAMHS; the issue is that the demand has also been growing. An investment of up to a further £2.3 billion a year is going into transforming NHS mental health services, including meeting the aim that over 300,000 more children and young people will have been able to access NHS-funded mental health support by March 2024.
A number of things that colleagues have talked about, including mindfulness—the key subject of the debate—and self-regulation techniques, general wellbeing and building up resilience, have an important role in helping to prevent some of that pressure. One wants to make people resilient and resistant to some of the problems that inevitably come our way in life and able, if there are relatively low-level issues, to deal with them before they become bigger. One also wants, as I said, to relieve some of that pressure.
The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North rightly mentioned counsellors and mental health professionals in schools. Many schools already provide targeted support to pupils through counsellors, pastoral staff, educational psychologists and other roles. No single intervention works for every pupil; again, I think it is important that settings have the freedom to decide what is the best support in their circumstance and for their cohort of children.
Charlotte Nichols
I want to ask a question about the idea of schools having flexibility. Of course, in general terms, I would welcome that, but is there not a worry that we would end up with a postcode lottery of provision in terms of the mental health support woven through schools? Areas such as Warrington would have fantastic things available for our young people, but children in towns in the surrounding area would still have issues that we could really be stepping in to address.
Damian Hinds
The senior mental health lead training that I talked about is a nationwide offer—I am talking about England, because, as hon. Members know, education is devolved. I was just about to talk about mental health support teams, which will similarly be a nationwide offer. It is a gradual roll-out. I think it is possible to combine having a nationwide approach with tailoring to one’s particular circumstances. We are continuing to roll out the mental health support teams to schools, and also to colleges. They will deliver evidence-based interventions for mild to moderate mental health issues and will support the mental health leads with their whole-school approach. As of April last year, the support teams covered a little more than a third of our schools, with a little more than a third of pupils in the country. That number continues to grow; the coverage should extend to at least half of pupils by March 2025.
The hon. Member for Warrington North rightly mentioned the wellbeing of staff, which is an important subject, and the Government take it very seriously. At the start of this year, we announced £1.5 million of new investment to deliver a three-year mental health and wellbeing support package for school and college leaders. That was in addition to the just over £1 million already invested in the current support package.
More broadly, we have worked in partnership with the education sector and with mental health experts to develop the education staff wellbeing charter, which sets out commitments from my Department, Ofsted and schools and colleges on actions to improve staff wellbeing. In January, we published an update showing the significant progress made on our pledges. I would simply echo what the hon. Member for Warrington said, which is that taking part in mindfulness in certain circumstances can also have a benefit for teachers and leaders in schools.
I am enormously grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the potential of mindfulness in schools—Mr Gray, you have been gracious and generous in allowing us to move into some adjacent but clearly related areas that it is important to discuss—and the Government agree with her that mindfulness is one of the tools that can support wellbeing in school. Our approach of building the evidence base, including through the extensive trials I talked about, and supporting schools to make effective decisions on their provision will ensure that such opportunities are acted on.
School Attendance (Duties of Local Authorities and Proprietors of Schools) Bill
Damian Hinds ExcerptsFriday 2nd February 2024
(3 months, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Let me first warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) on her success in the ballot, and on using that success for this purpose. I am delighted that she has chosen school attendance as the subject of her Bill. It is a subject that I know is close to her heart, and one that she has championed with aplomb and with impact. She said towards the end of her remarks that attendance is the key to a child’s future, and I agree. We have often said that reading is the most fundamental thing in school, because if a child cannot read properly, they cannot access the curriculum and nothing else works, but attendance is even more important. Whatever our brilliant teachers are doing in schools, if the children are not there, they cannot benefit.
I thank my hon. Friends and the Opposition spokes-person, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), for their contributions. We all recognise the importance of regular attendance not only for children’s attainment, but for their wellbeing and development. There is evidence that some attitudes to absence have changed since the pandemic, with a somewhat greater propensity among some families to keep a child with a minor illness, such as a cough or a cold, at home, whereas prior to the pandemic they would have gone to school. It is worth saying that, before covid, great progress had been made on attendance since 2010, and we are committed to getting back to those levels. They will never be 100%, for obvious reasons—every child will be off school ill at some point, and sadly some children will need to be off for extended periods—but we need to get back to that pre-pandemic level of 95% or above.
I am pleased to confirm that the Government fully support this Bill from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford. We are exploring all possible avenues to make our attendance guidance statutory, including the use of existing powers. That is important because we want every child to be able to achieve their potential, and attending school regularly is obviously crucial to that. As my right hon. Friend outlined, this Bill will improve the consistency of support available in all parts of England, first, by requiring schools of all types to have and to publicise a school attendance policy and, secondly, by introducing a new general duty on local authorities to seek to improve attendance and reduce absence in their areas.
The Bill will require schools and local authorities to have regard to statutory guidance. In practice, that will see us revising and reissuing our “Working together to improve school attendance” guidance. It is widely supported by schools, trusts and local authorities, and both the Education Committee and the Children’s Commissioner have already called for it to be made statutory. The guidance was introduced in September 2022 and has already started to make a difference. There were 380,000 fewer pupils persistently absent or not attending in 2022-23 than in 2021-22. Overall absence for the autumn term just gone was 6.8%, which is down from 7.5% in autumn 2022. To turn it the other way around, attendance in that term is up, year on year, from 92.5% to 93.2%.
However, while we of course welcome that improvement, there is still further to go to get to those pre-pandemic levels and better, and there are still parts of the country where families do not have access to the right support, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) rightly identified. It is important to legislate to end the postcode lottery so that any family can get the support they need, and doing so will give parents increased clarity and level up standards across schools and local authorities. That is also an important part of this Government’s emphasis on a “support first” approach, meaning that schools and local authorities work together to break down the barriers that can stop a pupil attending.
To support schools and local authorities in meeting those expectations, the Government already have a comprehensive attendance strategy, and this aspect of it is only one part of a much wider whole. We have deployed attendance advisers to support local authorities and a number of trusts. We have created a new data tool, with 88% of state-funded schools signed up. At the system leadership level, we have convened the attendance action alliance to work across sectors to remove barriers to attendance and reduce absence. We have launched 32 attendance hubs, to reach more than 1 million pupils. And we have expanded our attendance mentor pilot, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) rightly mentioned, to reach 15 priority education investment areas.
Of course, much wider work is in place as well. More children are now eligible for free school meals as a result of the protections put in place on universal credit transition; £30 million has been spent on breakfast clubs and it is targeted at where it is most needed—where it can have the most effect. I say to the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North that that does include secondary schools as well as primary schools. We also have in place the holiday activities and food programme. We are increasing the pupil premium in 2024-25 to £2.9 billion. Of course attendance is one of the great factors and important drivers in narrowing the gap between better-off and more disadvantaged pupils. We are expanding the Supporting Families programme over this spending review period, and addressing attendance at school where there is a problem is a fundamental part of that programme.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Philip Dunne) mentioned the lasting effect, sadly, of the pandemic and the importance of socialisation, and he is absolutely right; we often think of the early years and the effect on the youngest children, but this is actually true throughout a child’s or young person’s development. He particularly mentioned the year 6 to year 7 transition point, which we know is pivotal in so many ways, and a lot of schools are doing some very good work there.
My right hon. Friend specifically asked about mental health and the possibility of an absence code. I understand his motivation and that of others in raising that point. Let me just say that a practicality question is involved. At the moment someone is taking the register, it is not always practical for them to be able to say that something is one particular type of health issue or another, and there is the risk that we would have inaccurate reporting and a misunderstanding of trends as a result. He also mentioned the wider work on mental health. He will know that we are putting forward a grant for every state school to be able to train a senior mental health lead. In addition, the really important wider work on mental health support teams, supporting clusters of schools, primary as well as secondary, continues to grow.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central mentioned not only the mentors programme, but the importance of extra-curricular activity and pastoral care. That is really important and we need always to be saying that this is about not only learning and attainment, but everything else that comes with school. Of course, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury in congratulating Aylesbury High School. He was right also to ask about costs for local authorities and for us not to overburden schools. In advance of issuing our existing guidance on attendance, we carried out the comprehensive new burdens assessment, which found that the expectations could be implemented by local authorities without additional funding if they had the average number of staff working on attendance. We are confident that that assessment remains accurate, based on a growing body of evidence since that assessment was published. The evidence shows that where local authorities are delivering the guidance, staffing levels have remained within those predicted levels.
But my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury was also right to talk about ensuring that we do not overburden schools themselves. I join him in paying tribute to school leaders, schoolteachers and wider staff for the extraordinary work that we have heard is going on and what they are doing to get children into school. I absolutely agree with him that we need to ensure that we have a proportionate approach that supports the whole system—the schools, local authorities and so on—and works with people in our common endeavour to maximise the benefit that children get from their education. This Bill, if passed, will also update our existing guidance in advance of the new school year to reflect the latest best practice and feedback that we have gathered from the sector, and to make it as easy as possible for schools and local authorities to understand the actions they need to take.
In closing, I reiterate my thanks and appreciation to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford for bringing this important Bill before the House today. Being in school has never been more valuable, with standards continuing to rise, and this Bill will help to ensure that every young person and their family, whatever their background and wherever they are in the country, can receive the support they need to do just that. I am sure we will hear more from her—and I look forward to that—as the Bill progresses through the House. I thank her again, and I urge hon. Members across the House to support the Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
I recognise the challenge from falling rolls when there is demographic change. That is why we are changing how the growth and falling rolls funding is allocated to local authorities—it is now based on decreases as well as increases in pupil numbers. We are also giving greater flexibility to allocate funding to meet the revenue costs of reducing surplus places.
Florence Eshalomi
I thank the Minister for that reply. Declining school rolls in London is a big issue that I have raised in the House on a number of occasions. We are seeing families with young children being driven out of London because of the affordability of housing and the cost of living crisis, and a new report out today by London Councils shows that the situation is getting even worse. In Lambeth we are seeing a 17.5% drop in demand for reception places over the next five years. Archbishop Tenison’s School, opposite the Oval cricket ground in my constituency, closed last year. We need urgent action from the Government. The falling rolls funding is helping, but that is just for the short term. Will the Minister look at how we can protect our vital education assets? Will the Government finally address the cost of living crisis?
Damian Hinds
It is true that a period of change is coming as the bulge in primary school numbers starts to move into secondary schools, and it is important to plan ahead for that. We want to work with local authorities, and I know that the hon. Member’s local authority, Lambeth, is being proactive in looking at amalgamations where necessary. We also have pupil place planning advisers in each region working with local authorities and academy trusts, and school resource management advisers working directly with schools. There will also be some repurposing of some space in schools—I am not speaking specifically about her constituency—with opportunities for more early years provision in some cases, and more special educational needs provision. We will have to be agile and ensure that there is still sufficient space for parental choice.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
As the Secretary of State knows—we share a local authority—when it comes to calculating demand for secondary school places, West Sussex gets a D-minus. One of my districts is oversubscribed and last year more than 50 children—almost all from one school—were taken out of district to a school that none of them had applied for and some of them had not heard of. Next year, it could be even worse. Despite help from my noble Friend Baroness Barran and the regional schools commissioner, West Sussex has still done absolutely nothing to address the shortage of secondary school places. Will the Minister intervene?
Damian Hinds
As I said to the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), it is true that there is change as numbers move from primary into secondary, and it is important to try to plan ahead. On the specifics of West Sussex, I will be pleased to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it further.
Jill Mortimer (Hartlepool) (Con)
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Attendance did decline through covid. It is now improving, but there is a lot more to do. We are expanding attendance hubs to support nearly 2,000 schools and we have launched the “moments matter” campaign to remind parents of the importance of every single day in school.
Jill Mortimer
In Hartlepool, we have seen a rising number of parents and guardians opting for home-school education. As of November, that number had increased to 186, more than tripling in four years. In addition, we have a huge number of children who simply do not turn up at school. Will my right hon. Friend please share the steps that he is taking alongside Hartlepool Borough Council to ensure that those children are receiving a fair and decent education?
Damian Hinds
I will. Local authorities have duties towards those children to ensure that all are receiving a suitable education and act if not. The consultation we held on revised guidance to help fulfil that responsibility recently closed, and we will publish the response in due course. We remain committed to legislation, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) said, to create statutory registers of children not in school in order to help local authorities identify those eligible children.
Stephen Hammond
I know from speaking to schools in Wimbledon that access to mental health support can get pupils back into school or keep them in school. What plans does the Department have to roll out more access to that mental health support so that we can see that trend increase?
Damian Hinds
Of course, there are multiple layers to mental health support. The mental health support teams programme, which we are rolling out gradually across the country, continues to expand. At the end of March 2023, 35% of pupils in school or further education were covered by that, including 47% at secondary. When the figures for this year come out, I expect them to be higher. Unlike the Opposition, we are putting mental health support not only into secondary schools but into primary schools, where it can make a big difference.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The reality for mental health support teams in schools is that funding is not guaranteed beyond 2025, and the coverage is patchy. Earlier this month I heard about a teenager in a secondary school in my constituency who has not attended for four months because of mental ill health. The school is convinced that if there were dedicated, qualified mental health practitioners in secondary and primary schools, attendance would improve. Will the Minister back my ten-minute rule Bill to commit to exactly that duty, to be paid for by trebling the tax on social media companies, which so often are at the root of those problems?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Member identifies important problems. There are important links between mental ill health prevalence and non-attendance. We will see benefits from the offer to all state schools and colleges of a grant to train a senior mental health lead, as well as the wider mental health support teams that I mentioned.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Early intervention is key. We need to look at what more can be done at primary school level because, although not entirely, often the signs are already there by the time children get to secondary school. Could the Minister say more on that? The transition from primary to secondary is also key, and we need to look at that.
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is entirely correct. It is important to consider the role of mental health in primary as well as secondary school. We put mental health education on the curriculum through relationships, sex and health education, and we are investing in the mental health support teams that I mentioned, as well as the training grants. Of course, some schools do the transition from primary to secondary very well. It can be an unsettling time for children, but also an exciting one, and it is important that we maximise those benefits. There is a lot of good practice out there.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
In England, school attendance is impacted by off-rolling—a practice that does not exist in Scotland. Now, we hear in a report that schools are actively removing GCSE students, not for any behavioural issues but because they are struggling academically and the school wants to protect its place in the league tables. What steps is the Minister taking to address what the Centre for Social Justice has called
“a system which effectively rewards schools for exiting academically underperforming students”?
Damian Hinds
Let me be abundantly clear: off-rolling—removing a pupil from a school without using a permanent exclusion—is unacceptable and unlawful. That is in the Ofsted framework, and it is strengthened in the revised framework that came out in 2019 to look at that. That can be seen in Ofsted’s report. It is also looked at by the Teacher Regulation Agency. We must be abundantly clear that being involved in off-rolling is not consistent with the conduct we expect of a teacher. In serious cases, it could result in action.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
I agree that, given all that the UK has in common, it is vital that we talk about policy issues frequently, including on devolved matters. The UK Education Ministers Council last met in June last year, when it was hosted by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in Liverpool. I understand it is for the Scottish Government to issue the invitation for the next one—we await their missive with anticipation.
Patricia Gibson
Expanding free school meals has a direct impact on children’s health, promoting cognitive development and improving test scores and concentration. The Scottish Government are rolling out universal free school meals for primary school children. What additional financial efforts will the Minister make to address educational inequality, such as supporting and following the example of the Scottish Government to improve outcomes for all pupils?
Damian Hinds
We await the Scottish Government’s full programme, but I will say that, in recognition of the benefits of free school meals and targeting them where they can have most effect, one in every three pupils in England are now eligible for free school meals, compared with one in six when Labour was in Government.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
To be clear, the UK Government will not even extend free school meals to children in households receiving universal credit. Speaking in Parliament two weeks ago, the Children’s Commissioner for England urged the UK Government to expand free school meals, saying that children with an empty belly cannot learn. When will this Government follow Scotland’s lead in addressing child poverty by rolling out free school meals to all primary school children?
Damian Hinds
We have extended eligibility for free school meals on three occasions, mainly with universal infant free school meals, the extension of further education students and, most recently, by extending the protections for people in transition on universal credit. I say gently to the hon. Lady that we think it is important to target free school meals, but that it is just as important for children in secondary school as in primary.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
We are committed to funding all schools fairly and equitably, wherever they are. The national funding formula replaces an unjust system whereby schools received different levels of funding for no reason.
Andrew Selous
It is welcome that funding for all schools has risen, but does the Minister accept that there is deprivation in market towns and villages where transport costs are higher, and that the difference between the sums for the highest funded local authorities and those for the lowest funded, such as Central Bedfordshire, is thousands of pounds per child? What can he do to close the gap more quickly?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right about the importance of deprivation factors and, indeed, transport costs. We are increasing the amount under the formula that relates to deprivation, and there is also the sparsity factor. Of course, all schools are benefiting from increases in funding, which will total £59.6 billion in 2024-25.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
When it comes to the funding of schools, should not the Government just follow the money? Amber Infrastructure, which owns Newman College in Chadderton, has paid out £80 million of shareholder dividends during the time for which it has owned that PFI school. The heating system does not work, the roof is leaking—which is affecting 30 classrooms— and now two temporary classrooms must be built to accommodate the pupils. Will the Government intervene and point out to the provider that if the money is there to be taken in dividends, it is there to fix a roof as well?
Damian Hinds
I would be happy to follow up the matter of the private finance initiative contract at that college, and perhaps have some discussions with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
We are investing very heavily in breakfast clubs. This is another area in which we think that targeting support matters. That includes secondary schools, not just primary schools, as the Labour party suggests.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Is it not a disgrace that young children are told to cover up their badges so that people do not know which school they attend, and are told to remove outward signs that they are Jewish? Security is provided once they get to school, but what will my right hon. Friend do to make sure that children are educated on the evils of antisemitism, so that we spread this message across all schools, rather than just Jewish schools?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is right. After Holocaust Memorial Day, we are acutely conscious of the continuing need to act against antisemitism. One of the things we are doing is launching a new fund for both schools and higher education, to try to address antisemitism effectively at its root.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)
Will students affected by RAAC, such as those at Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton, receive special dispensation in their GCSEs and A-levels? I recently met the college’s exceptional headteacher, Mrs O’Callaghan, and I take this opportunity to wish her all the best on her well deserved retirement at the end of the year.
Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating, commending and thanking Mrs O’Callaghan on her life’s work. I appreciate that the RAAC situation in schools has been very difficult, which is why we are trying to work with them on things like coursework assessment. They should be in touch with awarding bodies. We are also making sure that we reimburse all reasonable revenue costs.
Ian Byrne (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab)
Damian Hinds
I pay tribute to the headteachers in Liverpool, West Derby. We think it is important to have an independent inspectorate, and we think it is important that assessments are clear. In the wake of the tragedy of Ruth Perry, it is right that we think about all the aspects, some of which have already changed. To be clear, we think it continues to be important that there be a clear external assessment for parents.
Shaun Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Con)
Families across Tipton and Wednesbury are still struggling to get an initial assessment for children with SEND. What work is my right hon. Friend doing to hold organisations such as child and adolescent mental health services to account, so that we ensure that these assessments are done quickly?
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Damian Hinds
We want to see schools not excluding children where that is at all possible. There is no right number for exclusions; they have to be determined in the light of the circumstances at the school, but we expect people to look at the matter as a whole. I will, of course, be happy to talk to the hon. Lady.
Mrs Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for her earlier answers about RAAC. Will she give priority for a complete rebuild to St Edward’s Catholic Academy in my constituency, following the adjudication that more than 80% of it is affected by RAAC? Can the plans start very soon, please?
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
St Peter’s Church of England Primary School in Budleigh Salterton is an excellent school, but it is being let down by temporary classrooms that are way past their best. Temporary classrooms should be just that: temporary, not a permanent solution. Further to my letter, which is winding its way through the Department, will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss this matter further?
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Children’s services are struggling, and in too many parts of England, outcomes for children are just not good enough. What conversations has the children’s Minister had with those in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about both resources and capacity for children’s services? What measures will he take where councils underperform, and thus let children down?
Books in Primary Schools
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
It is a pleasure, once again, to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. It is nice to be in a Westminster Hall debate in which we all overwhelmingly agree. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) on securing the debate, and it is good to have others taking part. We have particularly benefited from hearing about the hon. Lady’s experience. She mentioned her early childhood experience as a user of libraries, and then her experiences throughout her life as an employee, a professional and an academic in the library service.
The hon. Lady said that we should improve children’s access to books. The Government wholeheartedly agree. Reading is the cornerstone of a brilliant education, an important part of growing up and adult life, and a core focus of this Government. She talked about being in competition with video games, consoles, phones and tablets. In the old times, we might have said that television was top of that list. There are good arguments and practical, useful roles for all those pieces of electronica, but there is nothing quite like a book for the physical, mental and emotional experience.
Mr Sheerman
Does the Minister agree that one of the real problems we all have—I have it in Huddersfield; everyone has it in their constituency—is early stimulation? We see so many parents now pushing their small child in a pushchair, with their headphones on; they are not talking to the child. That early learning of the language, then reading at night and taking them to the library to get their books is crucial, is it not? That is why this debate is so important.
Damian Hinds
What can I say? The hon. Gentleman is ahead of me, and not for the first time. I do not think he has seen my handwritten notes, but if he had, he would know that they say, “It starts with being read to.” I remember previous debates we have had in this Chamber, particularly with our former colleague Baron Field, who was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead. For example, we used to talk about how those early experiences of being read to are so important, not only because of the reading experience, but because it is quite difficult to read to a very young child without holding them, and that early attachment is part of it.
We have a focus these days on the home learning environment, and some of the ways we can make everyday experiences—little moments—matter. Everyday experiences at a bus stop, on a train or in a supermarket are all part of that early literacy experience. Ideally there should be books at home, and I pay tribute to some of the organisations that have tried to make that more widespread, particularly in disadvantaged communities or for people on lower incomes.
Of course, there should also be books at school. School should be the great leveller. I have visited a lot of schools in my time. Like the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), I am a former member of the Education Committee. I am now and have been previously an Education Minister, and, like all of us, I am a Member of Parliament. In those three roles, I have visited a lot of schools. I am always struck by the prominence that schools give to books and reading. They are an important part of school life, and that is true for reading time in school and for children taking books home to enjoy them there.
All pupils deserve to be taught a knowledge-rich curriculum that promotes extensive reading both in and out of school, and reading is a principal way to acquire knowledge. The texts that our young people read play a big part in their wider development, too, by broadening their horizons and introducing new ideas and perspectives.
We have strengthened the national curriculum to focus on developing reading. To encourage the development of a lifelong love of literature, we are requiring pupils to study a range of books, poems and plays. The national curriculum also promotes reading for pleasure, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough rightly says, with evidence showing that that is more important for children’s educational development than even their parents’ level of education.
Charities such as BookTrust and the National Literacy Trust work tirelessly to raise the profile of reading for pleasure, and I thank them for their work. Of course, such organisations also do important work to raise awareness of the vital role of libraries, and we recognise the particular importance of libraries in increasing children’s access to books and promoting reading for pleasure, whether in school or in the community library. I am grateful to the organisations and authors who are currently shining a light on the difference that libraries can make, such as Julia Donaldson, Michael Morpurgo, Philip Pullman, Cressida Cowell and others.
I also recognise the important work undertaken by a range of organisations to promote the work of libraries to children, families and schools. For example, Schools Library Services assists schools with everything from developing whole libraries to book stocks and staff training, and the Reading Agency’s summer reading challenge, which I think many MPs also take part in directly or indirectly, motivates more than 700,000 children of all abilities to read for enjoyment over the summer holidays through their local library. It is for individual schools to decide how best to provide and maintain a library service for their pupils, including whether to employ a qualified librarian. Our reading framework provides guidance on that, including how best to engage children with the books that are available in school.
Public libraries have a strong offer to support children’s development as readers beyond school, not just through books and resources, but through events such as Rhymetimes. The experience of visiting a public library these days is quite different from when we were children: there is so much more going on, and it is much more inclusive and welcoming.
Gill Furniss
Does the Minister agree that cuts to public services mean that there is less access to public libraries? Many have closed, and community libraries, which adults in particular used to rely on, are no longer accessible.
Damian Hinds
I accept that there have been strains on public finances. The origins of those are well known: when the Government came in in 2010, there was a recurring annual public deficit of £155 billion, which is £5,500 for every household in the country. That meant that difficult decisions had to be made over time, but libraries remain an essential part of the fabric of our country. There are statutory requirements around libraries for upper-tier local authorities, and there were 2,892 static libraries in England at the last count. That does not include mobile libraries, of which there is not a similar count.
Peter Gibson
Talking of libraries gives me the perfect opportunity to highlight the fantastic work in Darlington, where our library was threatened with closure by the Labour-controlled local authority. The public were up in arms and they launched a campaign to save it. It is has been put in the hands of independent trustees, has just undergone a multimillion-pound revamp and is now at the heart of our community. Not every community has lost its library.
Damian Hinds
Well, I am pleased to hear of the good ending to that story. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work that he does locally and for his championing of these causes.
In 2022, my noble Friend Lord Parkinson, the Minister for Arts and Heritage, appointed my noble Friend Baroness Sanderson to review the public libraries sector to help inform future work. Her review of public libraries was published last week and makes a number of recommendations, which will inform the development by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport of the new Government libraries strategy for England.
For children to develop a love of books, we need to build a strong foundation in reading early on, and the Government have introduced a range of measures to support the effective teaching of reading right from the start.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister is making some very good points, but this is not just about books, surely—it is about what those books are. I had the honour of knowing Benjamin Zephaniah, who opened the John Clare cottage, which I am chairman of, but we are struggling to get children to come out of school into places such as that to learn about poetry and to hear and read poetry. Reading poetry at school has diminished. Trips outside of school have diminished. This is holistic. Would the Minister not agree that many children in our country from more deprived backgrounds are missing out holistically, not just in terms of libraries?
Damian Hinds
I am not quite sure how the hon. Gentleman would or could know that. I certainly know that when I visit schools, I see and hear poetry being read, discussed and being written by children. I agree with him entirely that poetry is a really important part of our literature, and it is a really important thing for children to be exposed to. Like the study of music and learning a musical instrument or to sing, they can find ways to express themselves in ways they did not know existed. It provides ways to understand the world in ways they had not previously appreciated. I agree with him absolutely on the importance of poetry.
I was talking about the earliest years, and in particular the early years foundation stage. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we introduced landmark reforms in the early years foundation stage to improve early years outcomes for all children, particularly disadvantaged children, in those critical areas that build the foundations of later success, including, importantly, language development and reading. The reforms will ensure that children receive the best start and develop a love of reading from early on. We have invested in early language intervention and are supporting parents through the home learning environment campaign that I mentioned a moment ago, which has been backed by further investment.
To drive up the standard of literacy teaching in primary schools, we have followed the evidence and focused on ensuring high-quality systematic synthetic phonics teaching for every child. Since 2010, we have turbocharged the effective teaching of phonics by placing it at the heart of the curriculum and introducing the phonics screening check in 2012 to assess pupils at the end of year 1. We have incorporated phonics into the teachers’ standards, the baseline of expectation for teachers’ professional practice. We have placed a greater focus on phonics and the teaching of reading in Ofsted’s inspection framework and supported schools to choose good phonics programmes by publishing a list of schemes validated by the Department.
In 2018, we launched the English hubs programme, which is dedicated to improving the teaching of reading. The programme has so far supported over 1,600 schools intensively, with a particular focus on helping children making the slowest progress in reading, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It includes schools in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, which are supported by two of the hubs, Learners First and Saint Wilfrid’s. The programme is having a measurable impact. Schools supported intensively as partner schools by English hubs outperform non-partner schools by around seven percentage points when comparing the change in year 1 phonics screening check results between just before the pandemic and 2022.
Mr Sheerman
May I make a final intervention? The Minister’s colleague, the hon. Member for Darlington (Peter Gibson), has rudely left him on his own.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Gill Furniss) wants the Government to say that every school must have a library. Is the Minister for that, or is he against it? When is he going to introduce it? He has not got much time before the election.
Damian Hinds
Look: schools have books. I do not know what schools the hon. Member may have visited that do not have books on shelves, but schools have books. Sometimes libraries these days get called “learning resource centres” and all sorts of different things. Sometimes they are laid out in different ways and not necessarily laid out as a set-aside room, but schools have books. We trust schools, headteachers, boards of governors and trustees to know what is right for their school and how to provide best for their children. We want reading and books to be at the heart of that and, in my experience of primary schools in England, that is indeed what happens.
The hubs that I mentioned are about more than phonics. In 2021, we rolled out the “Transforming your school’s reading culture” programme, which was developed by hub schools and sector experts to support reading for pleasure. Reaching around 600 schools last year, English hubs is now into the third year of delivering that research-based continuing professional development programme, which trains teachers in schools across the country to ensure that every pupil develops a love of books.
We know that the hub programme cannot reach every single school, so to ensure that all teachers had clear guidance to support their teaching of reading, we published a reading framework. Updated last year, the framework offers non-statutory guidance on best practice in the teaching of reading from reception to year 9. It recognises the importance of encouraging a love of reading, including the vital importance of pupil choice and access to a wide variety of books. More than 90% of schools have taken our first reading framework published in 2021 and 66%, or two thirds, have made changes to their practice as a result.
Our clear focus on reading is making an impact. England came fourth out of the 43 countries that tested children of the same age in the 2021 progress in international reading literacy study, which is an assessment of the reading abilities of primary-age children across the world. I am grateful to all the primary school teachers, teaching assistants and everybody in our brilliant school system whose commitment to reading and to our children has made that possible. The strongest predictor of PIRLS performance was the year 1 phonics screening check mark, with higher marks predicting higher PIRLS scores.
The Department is committed to improving literacy for all pupils because we cannot knock down barriers for children if we do not teach them to read well. We are determined to drive progress further still and ensure that all children can benefit from high-quality teaching, giving them a solid base on which to build as they progress through school.
Question put and agreed to.
Children Not in School: National Register and Support
Damian Hinds Excerpts(3 months, 2 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
I warmly welcome the Opposition’s focus on the vital subject of school attendance. It is a big issue that we want everyone to talk about. Being in school matters for children—for their education, for their development, for being with their friends and for all else that school brings. As our campaign says “moments matter, attendance counts.”
Everyone will be off school at some point through illness, and sadly some have to be off for extended—sometimes very extended—periods, but we absolutely want children to be in school as much as possible and to cut out avoidable absence. I am sure that the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) joins me in celebrating the success in cutting absence since 2010 and prior to the pandemic. Attendance levels improved significantly, with absence falling from 6% in 2010 to 4.8%, representing 15 million more days in school. Persistent absence, which was at 16% in 2010, came down by almost a third by 2015, and stayed around that level until the pandemic.
Many education systems are dealing with increases in absence since the pandemic. That is true of jurisdictions far beyond these shores. It is also true in all of England and Scotland, and in Labour-run Wales—where, by the way, the increase is from a considerably higher starting point to a considerably higher current point than in England. As such, I welcome the hon. Lady raising this subject. The actual motion, however, suggests that it is perhaps not a subject that the Opposition are taking properly seriously.
The motion starts by saying that the Government are not tackling persistent absence. Let us set aside for a moment that that is plainly nonsense, as I will come to shortly.
Damian Hinds
Not at the moment. There then follows the most colossal conflation—a massive non sequitur—about a register of children not in school because they are home educated. Obviously, absence and “not in school” sound pretty similar, but if the hon. Lady really thinks that the issue around absence is all about children being home educated en masse, she has failed to grasp the issue. [Interruption.] I simply point the hon. Lady who speaks for the Opposition to the motion as it is printed on the Order Paper, which clearly connects the two statements with nothing more than a semicolon between them. We do think that local authority registers are important: they would help improve oversight of those children who are not on school rolls, but they would not directly address the larger group of children who are on a school roll but have been persistently absent from that school.
Damian Hinds
No; I ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me for a moment.
Before we go on, I would like to say a short word about children in home education. This is often done very well by parents, who make huge sacrifices for their children, often in particularly difficult circumstances, and I pay tribute to those parents. Let us be clear: parents also have a right to home school their children, and that is a right I defend. However, we do think it is important for local authorities to have a register, because we know that not all children who are not enrolled at school are in receipt of a suitable education at home. We also think it is important that parents who are home schooling should be able to source support from their local authority.
The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South should know that that is Government policy because, as she said, it appeared in the Schools Bill. She may or may not have spotted that in the past few days the Department has completed a consultation on elective home education to inform new guidance. I know she has spotted that a private Member’s Bill has been tabled in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), which will come before this House on 15 March. Both the Secretary of State and I look forward to working with my hon. Friend as she seeks to progress her Bill through this House. In the meantime, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve their existing non-statutory registers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Damian Hinds
I give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), just because he has had a go three times.
Paul Blomfield
I thank the Minister for giving way. According to the 2021 census, there are over 197,000 young carers under the age of 18. That is recognised to be an underestimate, so when 85% of headteachers told the school census that they had no young carers in their school, that only illustrated how those carers are unrecognised within the system. Evidence submitted to the inquiry held by the all-party parliamentary group on young carers and young adult carers said that young carers have double the persistent absence rate of their peers—41.6%—but they are not recognised in the Department for Education’s guidance on working together to improve school attendance. When this debate has finished, will the Minister go away and review that guidance, and would he consider requiring all schools to have a lead for young carers in the way that they do for SEN, to make sure they are no longer unrecognised within our system?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Gentleman is right to identify the number of young carers growing up in our country and going through our school system and the particular needs they have, issues that are directly relevant in the case of absence. We are working to improve understanding of where there are young carers, including through the school census that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and also through the guidance that we issue. As he will know, “Keeping children safe in education” is the main guidance on that subject that is issued to schools: it requires designated safeguarding leads to be aware of the needs of young carers, but trying to understand those needs is something that goes broader within school communities. Of course, dedicated professionals working in our school system seek to do exactly that.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is so generous of the Minister to give way. In my constituency, families struggle. The cost of living crisis is ever present, and the housing crisis forces many families to move from house to house. Children end up quite a long way from school because parents, understandably, want their child to have some level of stability and keep them in the school where they know their friends and their teachers. To be honest, my schools are brilliant and the teachers are really committed, but surely we need recognition that cuts to council budgets, combined with the massive increases in need that there are at the moment, are a contributing factor to children being out of school. Does he accept that?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
Order. Can I just say to Opposition Members, first, that interventions should not be speeches; and secondly, that they are taking up their own time, and they will lose time on the second debate?
Damian Hinds
Of course, I readily acknowledge that cost of living pressures and inflationary pressures have been difficult for families in many ways. It is also true that the single most important thing to underpin family budgets is employment, and we are benefiting from the still very high rates of employment in this country. We are also benefiting from the proportion of people in work on low pay having come down significantly as a result of the national living wage. Yes, there is much more to do, but there is also a great deal happening. I should now make some progress.
To go back to the children not on school registers, the Government continue to work with local authorities to improve non-statutory registers. I have already mentioned the consultation on revised guidance for elective home education. Through termly data collection, we are also increasing the accuracy of registers, improving the understanding of this cohort of children. However, true accuracy can only be gained with mandatory registers, stipulating the data to be recorded and an accompanying duty on parents to inform local authorities when they are home educating.
We often say that reading is the most fundamental thing in education, because if someone cannot read they cannot access the curriculum, and then nothing else in school really works. However, there is one thing that is even more fundamental than reading, and that is attendance, because whatever great things our schoolteachers do, they can only benefit the children who are there to benefit from them.
I am pleased that we have started to see some progress in this area. There were 380,000 fewer pupils persistently absent or not attending in 2022-23 than the previous year. I am not quite sure how the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South does the extrapolation to her figure of one in four—[Interruption.] Well, that is not what the data series says. On Thursday, we will see the first data published for persistent absence in this academic year. We shall see what that says, but I hope it will show some further improvement. In any event, we certainly know that there is further to go.
Our comprehensive attendance strategy includes a number of different elements. There are clearer expectations of the whole system, including requiring schools to have an attendance policy and to appoint an attendance champion, and for local authorities and schools to agree individual plans for at-risk children. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) will be leading a debate in Westminster Hall very soon in connection with and in support of her presentation Bill on making such obligations statutory.
On data, which the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South spoke about, our attendance data tool now provides near real-time information, not once a year, to allow earlier intervention and avoid absence becoming entrenched. We already have 88% of schools taking part in our world-leading daily registers data pilot, and we want that to be 100% by September.
Damian Hinds
I ask the hon. Member to forgive me, in the interests of time.
We have targeted support in which schools with strong attendance performance support others that need help, and we are expanding that so that almost 2,000 schools will benefit. Our mentoring pilot, which I think the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South inadvertently referred to, is delivering one-to-one support for persistently and severely absent children. That is currently taking place in Middlesbrough, Knowsley, Doncaster, Stoke and Salford, and it will be extended to 10 new areas, with a total of 10,000 children, later this year.
System leadership is incredibly important. That is why we have the attendance action alliance, which brings together leaders not only from the world of education, but from children’s social care, health and allied services. They are all working together to address the wider barriers to and enablers of attendance.
As I said earlier, we must be very clear that some children do need to be off school some of the time. That has always been the case, but there has been some change in attitude since covid, with a greater propensity to keep a child at home with minor illness, such as a cough or cold in some cases. We need to recalibrate at least back to where we were pre-covid. That is why we have launched the national campaign “Moments Matter, Attendance Accounts” to re-emphasise the importance of every day in school, not only for learning but for wellbeing, experiences and friendships.
Alongside this, we have made attendance a key theme of school and children’s services reforms. We have provided additional funding for recovery, including for tutoring and direct funding for schools. To help families, we have committed an additional sum of £200 million to scale-up the Supporting Families programme, which of course has a specific requirement on school attendance. We are also spending on the national school breakfast programme to provide around 350,000 breakfasts on a school day in over 2,500 schools, targeted at the most disadvantaged areas. I also say to the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South that we should look at targeting secondary schools as well as primary schools, because persistent absence can of course be particularly concentrated in the secondary age group.
There are now considerably more children in receipt of free school meals than the last time a Labour Government were in office. This is despite the fact—[Interruption.] This is despite the fact, I say to the hon. Lady, that there are 600,000 fewer children living in workless households and that, thanks to the national living wage, the proportion of people in work but in low pay has halved.
Mental health barriers are also a very important part of this. That is why we are working with NHS England to increase the number of mental health support teams. They already cover 47% of pupils in secondary schools, and that will increase to at least 50% across all phases by March next year.
I am pleased to report that the latest data shows that, while there is still a lot to do, there is some cause for cautious optimism. Overall attendance last term was 93.2%, up from 92.5% in autumn 2022-23, meaning that pupils in England on average attend the equivalent of around a day and a half more across an academic year than they did the previous year. So while there is still a long way to go, this does represent progress.
To conclude, for the vast majority of children school of course continues to be the best place for their education, and it has never been more important to be at school. England’s primary school children are now the best readers in the western world, and at secondary we have made considerable progress.
The hon. Lady said some interesting things about PISA, the main international study of attainment—not the only one, but the main one—in which England has moved up the rankings, having previously come down the rankings before 2010. The hon. Lady says that in the end it is the score, not the rankings, that matter, and she is of course right. I am surprised she does not know this, however: she said education has not been badly affected by covid in every country, but I have to tell her that covid has given a real knock to education across most of the world. [Interruption.] I beg the hon. Lady’s pardon? [Interruption.] It has taken a great knock across much of the world and much of the world is now engaged in recovery programmes to make up that ground. But what the PISA results showed is that the knock sustained in this country was less than in very many other countries.
The PISA results also highlighted something else about education in England. It identifies this country as being in the relatively small set of what it calls “equitable systems.” In other words, as well as having strong performance relative to other countries, that performance is well spread out.
There have always been some children who are educated at home, and I repeat my earlier tribute to parents who, in so many cases, give up so much to do this and do it so well. However, covid created a big increase on top of what was already growth in the numbers, and it is important that we understand that.
The wider issue is that the legacy of the pandemic has also meant that school absence levels are too high. We remain committed to working with pupils, parents, teachers, local authorities, the health service and other partners to tackle these issues through our support-first approach, building on the strengths of the current system and the success achieved by teachers and leaders in our schools prior to the pandemic. Being in school has never been more valuable for pupils, with standards continuing to rise. I am hugely grateful to all our brilliant teachers, heads, partners throughout the system and everyone who has worked to create the progress achieved so far, and I am confident there is a great deal more to come.
Free School Meals: Children with SEND
Damian Hinds Excerpts(4 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
What a pleasure it is to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, I think for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate on an important matter, as demonstrated by the over-subscription of this debate this afternoon. For their contributions, I thank the hon. Members for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), of course, for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) gave a compelling speech, and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) made a compelling and pithy point in his speech.
We all agree about the importance of ensuring that all children in school are given the best opportunities to thrive, and the Government are determined to ensure that every child, regardless of background or circumstances, can get the very best start in life. Today, we discuss those who have a special educational need or disability, and colleagues have raised several striking case studies of individual children and their circumstances from their constituency case load or, in some cases, from their personal family experience.
We support, of course, the provision of nutritious food in schools so that pupils develop healthy eating habits and can concentrate and learn, and free school meal provision is important to that being achieved in schools. This Government have extended eligibility for free school meals more than any other. We spend over £1 billion a year delivering free lunches to the greatest ever proportion of school children—over a third. That one in three compares with the one in six who were receiving a free school meal in 2010. That change came despite employment being up by millions, unemployment being down by a million, 600,000 fewer children being in workless households, and the proportion of those in work on low pay coming down substantially since the introduction of the national living wage in 20215-16.
Free school meal provision includes 2 million pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals and a further 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education who receive a free meal at lunch time. In addition, a further 1.3 million infants in reception and years 1 and 2 receive a free meal under the universal infant free school meal policy, which we introduced in 2014. That helps to improve children's education and boost their health, and it saves parents about £480 a year. We have also introduced extensive protections, which have been in effect since 2018, to ensure that while universal credit is being fully rolled out, any family eligible for free school meals transitioning to universal credit from the legacy benefits will retain their entitlement to free school meals, even if they move above the income threshold.
Pupils are eligible for benefits-related free school meals if they or their parents are in receipt of one of the eligible benefits and have submitted a request for meals. As colleagues will know, schools have a duty to provide nutritious, free meals to pupils who are registered with a state-funded school and meet the eligibility criteria for free school meals. The provision should be made for eligible pupils either on the school premises or at any other place where education of those pupils is being provided.
There are, of course, many pupils with special educational needs and disability status that meet the eligibility criteria necessary for free meals. The latest published statistics show that 41.1% of pupils with an education, health and care plan—known commonly as an EHCP—and 37.5% of pupils who are on what is known as SEND support were eligible for free school meals provision in 2023. Similarly, many children with disabilities but not special educational needs will be eligible, and those rates are higher than the overall proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals in England.
The standard food offering provided by schools will, of course, be suitable to the needs of many of these children. However, some pupils with additional needs may require special food provision or arrangements. Let me be very clear: all schools have duties under the Equality Act 2010 towards individual disabled children and young people, and they must make reasonable adjustments to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. That means that a school cannot treat a pupil unfairly as a consequence of their disability.
For the provision of school meals, that could lead to schools making reasonable adjustments to ensure that eligible pupils could still access their entitlement. For example, a school could let a pupil with sensory-processing issues go into the dinner hall before other pupils, or it could appropriately tailor the meal choices to the pupil’s particular needs. Schools do, of course, do those things and are best able to understand the individual children and the circumstances of their school.
We have published non-statutory guidance for schools to advise them generally on their duties to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils and to support them in doing so. I would also note that, while schools are not obliged to make such adjustments for pupils who are not disabled, many do work with pupils and their families to accommodate a variety of needs. Working with pupils to make adjustments to help them access food can, of course, as a couple of colleagues have alluded to, also help to improve attendance and behaviour. Further to that, we encourage schools to work with parents and pupils to ensure that their food provision adequately meets a diverse range of needs, so that it can be enjoyed and benefited from by all.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for giving way. My involvement in this is partly informed by constituents writing to me, but also as the aunt of a child whose neurodiversity means that she has a severely restricted diet, which is basically beige things and chocolate. I know that my sister has had huge problems in trying to ensure that she gets the right support at school, but I wanted to ask specifically about the Food Standards Agency. As I understand it, the FSA has been carrying out a review into schools’ compliance with the national school food standards, because there is very little information on the extent to which schools do comply with those standards. Does the Minister also see a role for the FSA in looking at whether schools meet that criteria and are actually meeting the needs of SEND pupils in terms of dietary needs?
Damian Hinds
Obviously the quality of school food is critical, and regulations cover not only free school meals, in the sense of lunches, but all food that is available during the school day—for example, in breakfast clubs that schools provide and even in tuck shops. I may get inspiration, but I think the standards cover up to 6 pm in the evening for things going on during the school day.
When one talks about compliance with regulations, one has to think differently about what is done at a system level and for individual children. Candidly, I do not think that it is realistic to say that you could have a regulatory agency that was looking at every individual case of individual children and their requirements in that particular school, but it is important that we have those standards. If the hon. Lady would like, I would be very happy, of course, to follow up with her separately.
That, in fact, brings me on to the point that I have in front of me, which is that, where parents do have specific concerns that a school’s legal obligations regarding their child are not being met, those should be raised with the school in the first instance, and subsequently, as necessary, with the academy trust or local authority.
Helen Hayes
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am simply making the point that the absence of any reference in the guidance to the legislation results in a situation of conflict—
Damian Hinds
I ask the hon. Lady only to be patient. That was a central point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and clearly I need to come on to it. To be straightforward and clear, we will update our free school meals guidance to make reference to the reasonable adjustments duty that is already set out in non-statutory guidance published by the Department elsewhere, in order to heighten awareness about reasonable adjustments, in particular as it relates to meal provision among schools, local authorities and families to support local solutions. That should give parents clarity and something to point schools to when discussing their child’s needs.
Where pupils have a medical condition that impacts their access to food, section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a legal duty on schools to make arrangements to support pupils with their medical condition. The accompanying statutory guidance from 2015 included in the document “Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions” sets out that governing bodies must have regard to that guidance when carrying out the duty.
The guidance makes it clear that schools should ensure that they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and that they have policies and processes in place so that those conditions can be well managed. The guidance is also clear that that includes how the processes will be implemented and the potential role of individual healthcare plans in supporting pupils. The guidance is clear that any individual plans should include consideration of
“access to food and drink where this is used to manage their condition”
and any “dietary requirements”.
Members also asked whether supermarket vouchers could be provided in lieu of meals. The requirements for free school meals are clear, such that eligible children should receive their free meal either on the school premises or at any other place where education is being provided. In some circumstances, it may be appropriate to provide supermarket vouchers to parents in lieu of meals. Equally, in other cases, it may be more appropriate for other arrangements to be made, such as food parcels.
The exact nature of alternative arrangements will of course depend on individual circumstances and should be determined case by case. It is rightly up to schools to decide how the provision should be made. We believe that they are best placed to understand individual circumstances, their families and their children, and to tailor their food provision accordingly. Ultimately, the best and most nutritious option is typically for children and young people to receive a hot and freshly cooked meal at school. That is what our policy supports, while allowing for alternative arrangements such as food parcels and vouchers to be put in place where necessary.
It is a condition of free school meal eligibility that children are registered with a state-funded school. Eligible pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, are entitled to receive free meals. Some children are not able to attend a school setting on a long-term basis or sometimes at all, owing to their complex needs. It is right that the Government’s high-level policy and funding framework leaves flexibility for local responses to the complex needs of individual children.
The Department allocates high-needs funding to local authorities to support the education and learning of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and local authorities have wide discretion over the use of that funding. We strongly encourage parents of children with complex food needs to be in touch with their school or local authority to discuss the support available to them.
Damian Hinds
I will ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me, because I want to ensure that I get through and cover the points. If I end up with more than a minute or two at the end, I will try to come back to him, if that is all right.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
Order. We also need to allow two minutes for Ian Byrne to conclude.
Damian Hinds
Which makes it slightly less likely, but let us see how we get on.
I am aware that concerns have been raised in relation to food provision for the particular group of children we discussed earlier: those with complex needs who are educated otherwise than at school, commonly known—perhaps this is the point that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown was about to raise—by the acronym EOTAS. Section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 allows for local authorities to make special educational provision for those children outside of a school setting. The latest published school statistics show that as of January 2023, there are about 8,000 children and young people receiving EOTAS.
Of course, not all those children and young people would qualify for free school meals under the benefits-related criteria. We fund local authorities to support those children, and decisions about exactly what is included in individual EOTAS packages rightly fall to them. We therefore advise parents of children receiving EOTAS to speak with the local authority if they have concerns. I note the concerns that have been raised today about food provision for children receiving EOTAS under section 61, and I can confirm that my Department will review our published free school meals guidance on that point. That will be available in the spring. We will of course work closely with stakeholders, including parents, to develop the guidance.
Free meal provision to eligible pupils with SEND is only a small part of the overall package of support rightly provided in recognition of the additional challenges faced by those children. To illustrate that, funding for mainstream schools and high-needs funding for children and young people with complex needs will be more than £1.8 billion higher next year compared with this financial year, and total schools funding will be £59.6 billion—the highest ever in real terms per pupil. Within that, high-needs funding will be more than £10.5 billion in 2024-25, which is an increase of more than 60% from 2019-20. That funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.
I realise that I am short of time, so I will conclude because I think the main points that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby would want me to come back to are the questions that he set out, and I can reassure him on those points. On his specific question about the holidays and activities fund programme and breakfast programme, I ask him to give me more information so that I can respond more fully in writing. I hope that on his main questions about not creating new guidance, because it already exists, but clarifying and communicating the guidance to schools on reasonable adjustments for children with disabilities and to local authorities about reflecting the need for food to be considered in packages for EOTAS, he will take some reassurance from what I have said. It remains only for me to congratulate and thank again the hon. Gentleman and all Members who have taken part in the debate.
Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)
With a hard stop when the clock says 6.19 pm, I call Ian Byrne.
Dedicated Schools Grant and Pupil Premium
Damian Hinds Excerpts(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Today the Department for Education has published local authorities’ dedicated schools grant (DSG) allocations for schools, high needs and early years revenue funding for 2024-25, as well as confirming schools’ pupil premium funding rates for 2024-25.
Core schools funding in England will increase by over £1.8 billion in 2024-25 compared to the previous financial year. This follows the 16% increase (over £7.9 billion) in funding from 2021-22 to 2023-24. School funding will be at its highest ever level in real terms per pupil by 2024-25, totalling over £59.6 billion.
Together, these publications confirm the funding increases that each local authority will see next financial year, reflecting the investment made in our education system in the 2021 spending review and the subsequent additional funding announced in last year’s autumn statement.
Mainstream school funding in the DSG will increase nationally by 2% per pupil in 2024-25, compared to 2023-24. Including the additional funding for teachers’ pay, overall mainstream schools funding will increase by 2.6%. This follows the 5.6% year-on-year per-pupil increase we delivered in 2023-24.
The extra funding we announced in July to support mainstream and special schools with the costs of the 2023 teachers’ pay award will continue to be provided alongside, and in addition to, the DSG in 2024-25.
High needs funding will increase to over £10.5 billion in 2024-25, a 4.3% increase compared to this year and an increase of over 60% over the past 5 years. Every local authority will receive an increase in funding of at least 3% per head of its population aged two to 18. This will help local authorities and schools with the costs of supporting children and young people with complex special educational needs and disabilities.
Pupil premium funding will rise to over £2.9 billion in 2024-25, an increase of £80 million from 2023-24. This represents a 10% increase in per-pupil rates from 2021-22 to 2024-25.
The indicative allocations for early years revenue funding in 2024-25 total £6.1 billion. These include funding for the expanded offers for eligible children aged two and under.
The dedicated schools grant allocations will be made available today at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2024-to-2025.
[HCWS157]
Oral Answers to Questions
Damian Hinds Excerpts(5 months ago)
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Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Nationally, school funding will rise to over £59.6 billion next year, the highest ever in real terms per pupil. This year, the north-east had the largest percentage increase in per pupil funding in the whole of England.
Grahame Morris
I welcome the Minister to his place.
Every day is a school day, but I wonder whether the new Schools Minister is familiar with the School Cuts website, which indicates that 214 out of 240 schools in County Durham face spending cuts in 2024-25. The cumulative impact of cuts in County Durham amounts to £113 million, equating to a £175 cut per pupil. Does he believe that restricting school budgets will help or hinder the educational opportunities and life chances for children in my east Durham constituency?
Damian Hinds
I have seen the website that the hon. Member mentions. Its calculations are based on some very speculative assumptions, and the conclusions that it reaches should therefore be treated with great caution. Next year, County Durham will receive over £391 million based on current pupil numbers, which is an extra £7.8 million for schools.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
I, too, welcome the Minister to his place.
On Friday, I joined Labour’s candidate Alan Strickland on a visit to Ferryhill School in County Durham. The staff team and students are amazing, but staff are left teaching in portacabins, the dining room and the sports hall, the staff room is behind a curtain on a stage, and years 10 and 11 are in a different town. Last week, yet more schools were added to the list of those with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, and the Secretary of State could not confirm how many will need complete rebuilds. Given the urgency, can the Minister tell parents, children and staff when this chaos will end?
Damian Hinds
Mr Speaker, allow me to take this moment to pay tribute to all school staff, leaders, children and their families, who have shown great fortitude in dealing with the disruption caused by RAAC. We have moved quickly to make sure all schools with suspected RAAC are surveyed and to work with schools to put in place alternative arrangements. Of course none of that is perfect, but schools have shown great flexibility in working towards that, such that we now have 99% of affected schools back with full-time face-to-face education.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Support staff play a vital role in our schools. We have given schools the freedom to recruit the staff they require to meet their own needs; although we do not collect central data on vacancies as a result, I can tell the hon. Lady that the number of support staff working in schools has increased for the past three years.
Cat Smith
We have already heard in this Question Time about delays in getting the education, health and care plans in Lancashire. As a consequence, rural schools like Quernmore, which I had the privilege of visiting on Friday, are left with more children with special educational needs in mainstream but without the financial support package that should come with that. These small rural schools are therefore having to support children with additional needs and do not always have the right number of staff to be able to do so in the way they would like. Is support available to rural and small schools, especially in Lancashire, to meet the needs of all children?
Damian Hinds
We must meet the needs of all children; and at some level, every teacher is a teacher of special educational needs and disabilities. I recognise that there can be particular difficulties for smaller schools in rural areas, as the hon. Member mentions. We have the wider EHCP system, which is better than the previous system. On places available in special schools, where children are in mainstream schools, I recognise the central role played by teaching assistants. That is why we have set out in the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan how we will look to consolidate that position and give further advice on the best deployment of TAs.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Meon Valley) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Reducing unnecessary workload is a priority for the Department and for me. We have convened a workload reduction taskforce of experts, teaching unions and practitioners to make recommendations on how to minimise workload for teachers and school leaders.
Mrs Drummond
It is good to see you back, Mr Speaker, and looking so well.
The last-minute nature of Ofsted inspections is causing huge anxiety to my small rural schools in Meon Valley. That means that teachers and in particular headteachers are putting off activities, such as residential school trips, educational trips and professional development courses, in case they get that call from Ofsted. Will my right hon. Friend consider changing the notice period for inspections so that teachers can plan their workload better?
Damian Hinds
I value all those activities that my hon. Friend sets out that schools undertake for their children. Like her, I represent a rural constituency—indeed, we have next-door constituencies. I recognise what she says about small rural schools. Inspections have an important role to play, but Ofsted also has the flexibility in the framework to take account of the particular position of smaller schools.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Teacher workloads are being exacerbated by teacher vacancies that schools are struggling to fill, and funding pressures are resulting in cuts to support staff, who often support the most vulnerable and needy children. That is leading to an exodus of teachers from our schools. Just last week, we saw the staggering figures from the Government that teacher training recruitment targets have been missed by a whopping 50% in our secondary schools, with the sharpest fall in maths, which is allegedly a priority for the Prime Minister. How bad does it have to get before the Government will produce and implement a proper workforce strategy?
Damian Hinds
I can confirm that there are 27,000 more teachers and 60,000 more teaching assistants in our schools compared with 2010. We have the most talented generation of teachers ever, and we continue to focus on a strong recruitment and retention strategy, so that we continue to get the best talent to teach our children.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The workload and stress levels of teachers rise exponentially during an inspection. I am sure that the Minister will join me in offering condolences to the friends and family of Ruth Perry. In the light of the coroner’s verdict that the “rude and intimidating” nature of the Ofsted inspection contributed to Ruth Perry’s tragic suicide, how is the Minister ensuring the welfare of school leaders is prioritised during inspections?
Damian Hinds
I of course extend my condolences to the friends and family of Ruth Perry. It was the most awful tragedy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will say a word on that tragedy and Ofsted in a moment. For now, let me just say that of course the inspection framework and process must both be fully informative to parents, and supportive to teachers and schools.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Free school meals support disadvantaged families to the value of £480 a year, ensuring that eligible pupils receive a healthy, nutritious meal. The Government have expanded free school meals more than any other in recent decades; now, more than a third of pupils in England receive them, compared with a sixth in 2010.
Mrs Murray
Recently, we have had high food inflation. While I welcome the fact that the Government have now halved inflation, one of my small schools has told me that it is unable to provide free meals within the money allocated, as it cannot benefit from the same economies of scale as larger schools. Will my right hon. Friend review the funds available for small schools?
Damian Hinds
I acknowledge my hon. Friend’s point. The national funding formula recognises that some schools are necessarily small and do not have the same opportunities to realise economies of scale. Every school receives a lump sum, irrespective of its size—£134,000 for next year—and the Government have reformed the sparsity factor, increasing funding for that from £42 million in 2021-22 to £98 million in 2024-25.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Michael Shanks (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
Of course, no one should face violence in school. In England, we have taken decisive action to improve pupils’ behaviour through strengthening the behaviour in schools guidance and investing in giving support and propagating best practice through the behaviour hubs.
Michael Shanks
The latest PISA figures, which were released in the last few weeks, show a stark picture of violence in schools across the whole UK. Nowhere else in the OECD do rates of violence reach anywhere near the levels in the UK. Pupils are almost twice as likely as the OECD average to witness a fight in their school—39% in England and 36% in Scotland—and, as a teacher, I can say from experience that violence in schools disrupts every part of pupils’ learning. Exclusion clearly is not working, and the Scottish Government’s recently announced proposal in Scotland is to put all the responsibility on teachers. What more can the Government do to illustrate a way forward for schools to deal with this problem, so that young people’s learning is not hampered by violence in the classroom?
Damian Hinds
For completeness, we ought to note that the PISA study noted that the great majority of pupils in England reported feeling safe in school—very similar to the OECD average—and were less likely than the OECD average to see the most serious manifestations of such behaviour, such as seeing gangs at school or seeing somebody with a weapon.
It is absolutely true that schools must have the full range of measures at their disposal. There is no right level of exclusion, and it should not be used lightly, but it has to be there; it has to be available. Early in our time in government, we made it clear that teachers can use reasonable force. We also extended searching powers, removed the requirement to give parents 24 hours’ written notice for after-school detentions and simplified advice on how to prevent and tackle bullying, because a safe and ordered environment is essential for both children’s education and their general wellbeing.
Simon Jupp (East Devon) (Con)
The Minister for Schools (Damian Hinds)
My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour has been a long-time champion on this matter, and I know his local work well. There are 701 free schools open, and a further 140-plus are in the pipeline. There is a current round of applications for consideration of special and alternative provision free schools, but further capital would be a matter for future spending reviews.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Reclaim)
Damian Hinds
As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are conducting a review of RSHE guidance. These are important and sensitive topics and it is important to get them right. He will not have long to wait to see the results.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Damian Hinds
It sounds like there are important details to get to grips with, so I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
Corpus Christi junior school on Brixton Hill has been closed since July due to RAAC. We now have tenders approved for the significant works that the Department for Education said were necessary and that it would pay for, but they must begin in January to ensure that they are completed in time. Could the Secretary of State explain why, despite repeated requests, her Department has still not approved the necessary funding? Any further delay could mean that my young constituents are left with further disruption and no building to learn in for the next academic year.
Damian Hinds
We are, as the hon. Lady will know, committed to ensure that reasonable costs for temporary accommodation and so on are covered in the immediate term and beyond, to make sure that capital costs are covered for either refurbishment or, in some cases, rebuild. There will be further detail to come before long.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Despite my private Member’s Bill on statutory guidance to reduce the cost of school uniforms—the Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Act 2021—far too many schools require a plethora of logos and branded items. When can we expect more robust intervention from Ministers to deal with this issue?
Damian Hinds
Schools should be reasonable in what they do and that is what our guidance sets out.
Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)
Staff at Bramhall High School have worked extremely hard to maintain the education of students following the discovery of RAAC. I am grateful for the support given by the Department and Stockport Council to ensure that temporary classrooms will be in place in the new year. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking the headteacher and the staff for all their hard work? Given the existing condition of the school, will he join me in calling for it to be included in a new build programme?
Mr Speaker
Can you just help me to get through? Members have not got in yet and I really do want to help everybody.
Damian Hinds
I join my hon. Friend in thanking and paying tribute to all the staff, children and families at Bramhall High Street. She is a great advocate for them. Schools and colleges will be offered either capital grants to fund refurbishment or permanently remove RAAC, or rebuilding projects where they are needed.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
Last week, the Government published an update of the list of schools with RAAC. Will the Minister confirm that the Department is seeking to cross-check its list of schools affected by RAAC with the BBC, because it remains the case that the BBC journalists have more of a grip on this crisis than the Government?
Damian Hinds
We have a lot of people working on this and rightly so, including making sure that all the surveys get done. We have also committed to being transparent, which is why we publish regular updates to the list. We continue to work at pace to try to resolve the problems as quickly as possible for the good of the children.